Today's economic environment requires businesses to provide better service using fewer people. Medical facilities, such as hospitals, are no different. In some cases, this pressure is driven by a difficulty in finding qualified staff. In other cases, this pressure is driven by competition and insurance companies. Unfortunately, the relentless pressure to cut costs can conflict with the basic mission of a hospital—to provide comfort to the patients and their loved ones.
Currently, when medical devices require human interaction from medical personnel, the medical device generates an alarm to alert nearby nurses and doctors. For example, when a patient's intravenous (“I.V.”) fluid drip bag goes empty, the I.V. machine generates an alarm until someone resets the machine and gives the patient the necessary medication and fluids. Unfortunately, the medical staff members are often located several rooms away and are busy with other tasks, which means that the I.V. device will continue to generate the alarm for some time. These extended alarm messages disturb other patients and can lead to so-called information overload. These problems are compounded because, after a staff member finally responds to the alarm and diagnoses its cause, the staff member frequently needs to get the required supplies from a medicine cabinet and then return to the patient's room to perform the change.
Many hospitals have begun experimenting with wireless communication technology as a partial solution to this problem. As a result, many new medical devices include a wireless network interface that can notify the hospital staff when they need attention. This technology allows medical devices, such as I.V. machines, to notify the hospital's nursing staff when they are empty and electrocardiogram machines to notify a patient's doctor when the patient goes into cardiac arrest. Many hospitals also use wireless technology to allow patients to contact the hospital's staff whenever the patient needs assistance.
Although this technology has provided many benefits, it can impose a heavy load on an already overworked staff. That is, many hospitals are finding their staff members inundated with an almost constant stream of alerts from equipment and requests from patients. Without a way to prioritize all of the alerts and requests, and then smartly dispatch the closest, available, qualified staff person, the promise of wireless medical technology may never be fully achieved.